The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [79]
Now something had ripped the plant’s largest leaf and something else had broken one of the stems, leaving a leaf hanging by no more than a few sinews. Domenica stared in dismay at the damage that had been done: two years’ growth, she thought, had been casually destroyed in a few moments of carelessness.
She looked up and saw that Antonia’s front door was ajar. It was as if a detective had arrived on the scene of the crime and seen the culprit’s footprint etched clearly into the ground. It was now obvious to her what had happened – Antonia had been carrying something into the flat, swinging her bag perhaps, and had brushed against the plant, thus causing this damage. And rather than attend to it – to break off the damaged leaf – and rather than knock on Domenica’s door and offer some sort of apology, she had merely disregarded what had happened. Well! That showed gratitude. That showed how much she appreciated everything that Domenica had done for her – offering her flat for the full period of her absence for nothing; and indeed getting nothing in return other than this cavalier conduct towards the local flora.
And then there had been the incident of the blue Spode teacup, which Domenica had found Antonia using in her flat, having obviously removed it from her own kitchen. Remove was a charitable term in this context; steal might be more accurate. That was business that had yet to be resolved, and it was difficult to see how this could be done. It is a major step to accuse one’s neighbour of theft; it implies a complete breakdown in relations and leads one into a position from which there is no easy retreat. It is quite possible, though, to make a remark that falls short of an outright accusation, yet makes a clear implication of negligence at the very least.
Domenica had given some thought to the Spode issue and had decided that she would raise the matter by saying: ‘I wonder if you’ve forgotten, perhaps, to return the cup you borrowed.’ That would indicate to Antonia that she knew that the cup was there, that she had not got away with it, but at the same time it did not amount to a direct accusation of theft.
It was a pity that things had come to this, she thought. Antonia had been a friend, and she had not imagined that there would be any breach in relations. But it had occurred, or was about to occur, and this, Domenica thought, demonstrated the wisdom of those who said that you never really knew your friends until you had lived in close proximity with them for some time. Going on holiday with friends was a good way of testing a friendship. In some cases, this worked well, and served to cement the relationship; in others, it revealed the fault-lines in that relationship as accurately as any seismograph will reveal the movement between plates.
Domenica had welcomed Antonia to Scotland Street even though she thought that it was slightly tactless of Antonia to have moved into the next-door flat without consulting her. She had wondered whether she was being excessively sensitive about this, as strictly speaking it was none of her business which flat Antonia should choose to buy. There was an open market in housing, and Scotland Street was part of that market. But then she thought that Antonia’s purchase of the neighbouring flat meant that she who had come as a guest to the larger address – 44 Scotland Street – would not be leaving, but remaining. And that, Domenica decided, constituted a unilateral extension of a relationship that had been entered into on the understanding that it would be temporary. Or that is how an anthropologist might put it; which was what Domenica was.
As she stood there, peering at Antonia’s half-open door, there crossed Domenica’s mind the idea that one way of signalling displeasure to another would be to write an academic paper expressing this displeasure, but couched in general terms and, of course, without mentioning the specific casus belli. So,